The Mekong river has seen it’s historically lowest water levels ever this year.
It’s an alarming state for all the countries counting on it’s Life force.
Water is Life.
The health and food security of a quarter billion people is threatened and the Environmental Parliament convened a ministerial level meeting for discussion of the water management issues in the region in May. It’s findings were published to great concern about the river’s waters communal management.
Additionally the intergovernmental Mekong River Commission has warned that the basin’s health and the river’s eco-systems could be threatened by proposed dams and expanding populations.
China has eight planned or existing dams on the Mekong River, but rejects claims that these have contributed to low water levels downstream. Although it is well understood that diverting the waters of the Mekong towards arid Beijing and the North is directly responsible for the lower river droughts.
Japan also held a meeting with the Mekong countries in Hanoi on Wednesday to discuss a joint “Green Mekong” initiative for the next decade, which aims to tackle challenges such as natural disasters and deforestation.
The United States also this week announced a three-year programme to help all the countries in the Mekong River basin adapt to the impact of climate change on water resources, food security and livelihoods.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the pledge at a Hanoi meeting with the representatives of the Southeast Asian countries of the lower Mekong region, whose waterway is also under threat from rapid economic development and expanding populations.
“Managing this resource and defending it against threats like climate change and infectious disease is a transnational challenge,” she told the foreign ministers of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
“Regional cooperation is essential to meeting that challenge, to preserving the ecological diversity and fertility of the Mekong region.”
The meeting was the first between the five ministers since they launched the Lower Mekong Initiative (LMI) in Thailand a year ago to develop cooperation on environment, health, education and infrastructure issues in the Mekong region.
The initiative was seen as an attempt by Washington to improve its profile in the region and counter the influence of China, which is home to the upper reaches of the Mekong.
The United States has said it will spend more than 187 million dollars this year under the initiative, the majority of which is directed at health issues.
Low-lying areas around the Mekong, which have been beset by drought this year, are considered some of the world’s most vulnerable to climate change.
More than 260 million people rely in some way on the river, which is the world’s largest inland fishery and the contributor to the largest production of rice.
Yours,
Pano
PS:
It seems where the EP leads others follow…
